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The Pilot
The Pilot is an unnamed secondary character that appears in the bonus Black Box episodes of Within the Wires. They help Hester get from the Institute to Aotearoa after the events of season 1. Biography Early Life The Pilot was born near Galveston, Texas, which was mostly destroyed during the Great Reckoning. They can recall Bishop's Palace standing in ruins during their childhood.Black Box Cassette #2: PWM to MDW When they were young, they had a fear of dogs, which the caretakers trained out of them. When they were almost 13, they were running down a hill "for no reason, probably" and tripped, tearing the sole off their shoe. Inside was a letter dated 1915, which they assume was from their grandfather, to his daughter Linda, who they assume is either their mother or their aunt. The first line of the letter read: "The Mayor died today, and no one wants his job." From this letter, they learn that their grandfather grew up in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called Yellowhook. This neighborhood is one of the only ones in Brooklyn to survive the Reckoning. At some point, the Pilot visited Yellowhook and tried to find the address written on the letter, which was 71st street, but the houses had mostly fallen apart. In the letter, the Pilot's grandfather talked about how malaria and influenza was infecting the block, and most people stayed indoors for fear of getting sick. As a teenager, they wrote a love letter to a friend at school. The reason they wrote it down was not because they were shy or bad at expressing themselves, as they said, it was so that the girl wouldn't be able to cut them off before they had finished, and they wouldn't have to see her disappointed face. Keisa talked to them later about the "creepy" unsigned note, and they agreed that it was creepy and promised to ask around to figure out who wrote it. They didn't talk about it again, and eventually stopped talking altogether.Black Box Cassette #4: YYZ to ATL At school, the Pilot showed an aptitude for mechanical things and displayed vehicle proficiency. They went on to drive many different vehicles, including cars and buses. As part of a special programme, they learned to drive a tank, one of the only ones left in existence. They supposed they did this partly to learn about mechanical things and partly to learn about the dangers of man. When they were 20 years old, they got their pilot's licence. They flew passengers at first, but moved on to cargo and found they enjoyed it better, with less customer satisfaction involved. Their cargo job, though possibly their passenger job too, was with KR Development. They met Coleen shortly after graduating college. At the time, they had an old Blue Heeler dog named Danny who was blind and had joint problems in his hind legs. In the last three years of his life, he had to wear homemade diapers and be kept indoors because he couldn't control his bowels. Pilot and Coleen couldn't afford to hire a dog-sitter when they went on their honeymoon, so they took Danny with them. They had to take him everywhere, and they didn't mind because they loved him; he was a smart, sweet, obedient dog, and he used to curl up between them in bed and nestle his head in the Pilot's elbow. About a year after they got married, he died asleep in bed, and they both cried all the next day and at intermittent times for a week after, but at the same time, the freedom from the burden was an immense relief.Black Box Cassette #5: HOU to LAX When they were in their early 30s, Coleen became pregnant and grew emotionally attached to the baby, naming them Sam and talking about how they would grow up. Coleen once asked the Pilot whether they would teach Sam baseball, and mused about whether Sam would grow up to be a Pilot like them. The Pilot was adamant that she stop doing this, as the rules of the Society dictated that Sam would be taken away from them once they were born, and people could be arrested for trying to hold on to their babies, at which point they would go through regimen that erased the ordeal - and sometimes other things, too. Before she left, the Pilot happened to see the name "Ouachita" in her planner, which was lying open on her nightstand with some notes.Black Box Cassette #7: MSY to HOU On their last night together, Coleen told the Pilot about the Cradle, which is supposedly a group of people who farmed in the woods, made art and raised children. Coleen described them as a commune, while Pilot called them a cult, who thieved and raided the Society. Coleen left that night, saying that wouldn't allow Sam to be taken away, and at least this way she could keep her memories of everything she loved. Once they were alone for more or less the first time in their life, the Pilot tried to embrace solitude by going camping by themselves at Grand Rapids in Michigan. They borrowed a truck from one of the mechanics they worked with, Rhonda. It rained, and they were cold, miserable, and terrified of the forest - but they stayed out there, because they were more scared of being on their own in their everyday life. They later took up whittling, which they didn't profess to be very good at. They started telling people that they and their wife had grown apart and she had left - boring and sad, unlike the truth, which was interesting and sad.Black Box Cassette #3: MDW to YYZ At some point they stopped being able to recall the name Ouachita, and eventually stopped recalling that he had seen a word in her planner at all. At some point when they used to smoke, they were in Montreal overnight. At 1AM, they were out on the street smoking, and they watched a bear walk down the street in silence. They backed up a little towards the building, but not enough that they couldn't watch it go. In their memory, the street was totally deserted and silent, although they reasoned that there must have been noise, such as the neon lights, the sound of their breath, and the wind whistling through the buildings. Another time in Montreal, they lost their wallet. They weren't sure if it was stolen or had simply fallen out of their pocket, but they spent a couple of hours retracing their steps to try and find it - they wouldn't have cared so much, but their wedding ring was inside it. They didn't find it, and cancelled their cards and got them replaced. Six months later, they returned to Montreal, in a different part of the city, and was recognised in a bar he visited by the bartender. When questioned, he said that he had their wallet behind the counter, as someone had handed it in after it was left on a table. There was nothing missing from the wallet, and they had no idea how it had got there.Black Box Cassette #6: LAX to SEA, SEA to YUL, YUL to MSY They kept the same plane as they had in their 20s all through their life, which is why the cargo plane featured in the tapes has a row of seats at the back - they say these are "for freeloaders" although they enjoy having someone in the plane to talk to, rather than just themselves or the plane. Interestingly, this is a definite violation of the law despite their self-proclamation of being somebody who follows the rules. The Pilot had heard rumours from other pilots about a hospital in the middle of nowhere in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and that others were wary about flying around there. Their friend Callie told them there was a facility called the Institute which was heavily secure and did experiments on criminals - or sometimes artists, miscreants, subversives, the poor, and children, although nobody had any proof. Helping Hester In about 1984, the Pilot's friend Paloma asked them to transport a woman going by the name Georgia from Philadelphia to Portland. They knew this was not her real name, and said that they would choose a new one for her when they introduced her to their friends (Callie, Leah, and Kara), who she would be staying with before the next plane ride. Callie, Leah, and Kara were theatre people, who they said would enjoy spending time with another artist. They knew Leah from when they lived in Fort Worth, and she was a mechanic. The Pilot said they would probably rope "Georgia" into their theatre, but that it would probably be fun. They instructed her to go to the Karibu Diner on the 14th at 21:00, where they could meet for dinner and work out how to get her onto their next flight. They said they could not get her all the way home, but could eventually take her to South America, where they had a friend that could get her on a boat.Black Box Cassette #1: PHL to PWM The Pilot corresponded with Callie, Leah, and Kara while their guest was staying with them, and heard that she seemed distant, and perhaps paranoid, and they had been worried about her. The night previous to the flight from Portland to Chicago, they had taken her out to dinner and had been having fun until Hester had pointed out a person potentially watching them and insisted they leave. The next morning, while the Pilot was taking off, they thought they saw someone matching a similar description and took the takeoff a little too fast, although they assured themselves and Hester that they had simply been paranoid. The plan upon landing in Chicago was for their friend Jen (they promised she could trust her absolutely) to sneak Hester home with her, and for the Pilot to arrange the next flight, which would either be to Nebraska, Montana, or Vegas. The plan went wrong, in some way related to the men in suits and sunglasses, with cigarettes and and unpleasant dog pursuing Hester. They were in Chicago for three weeks, and at one point the Pilot had to hide from the Society agents in a warehouse and hold their breath. On the way to Toronto, they gave her a false name, April Callins, which she would use while she stayed with a man called Gabriel for one night before getting to Houston, and from there San Jose or Tegucigalpa, and then to Buenos Aires or Santiago. They said that soon they would find someone they could trust who could get a ship to Auckland from Buenos Aires or Santiago and get Hester on her way home. However, things again did not go to plan. At some point during the week, they were involved in a car chase, where Hester drove. They escaped without any major injuries, although the Pilot did get a bullet graze on their arm, which they felt quite proud of. Hester divulged her and Oleta's history to the Pilot and explained why she needed their help getting across the world, and why she was being pursued by smoking men with unpleasant dogs. The Pilot later hoped that she didn't tell them just because she felt like she owed it to them. They ask Hester what she'll do if Oleta isn't in Aotearoa when she gets there, but then disregards the question as unnecessarily paranoid and cruel. They projected that at four o clock, they will land in Atlanta, and there will be a cargo ship going to Sydney from Valparaíso that their friend can get her on. In order to get on it, the Pilot would help Hester get to Santiago with the aid of some "light fraud" and a friend who was willing to switch around some flight records for them. The Pilot volunteered ("selfishly") to help get Hester all the way to Valparaíso by catching a bus or hitchhiking as they had become invested in her wellbeing and enjoyed being part of the story. They say they'll be sad to say goodbye to Hester, as she had made for very interesting company. She inspired them with her very brave actions and her commitment to changing her life for the better. They say they have never been that kind of person, although they wished they had been, for their wife and child. As they come in to land, they muse about how sometimes you just have to accept the limitations of what you're capable of. They feel like Hester is probably going to tell them they're wrong about that. They consider that maybe they could find Sam. Alone Again Unfortunately, the journey did not end as planned. The Pilot was delayed longer than the week they had promised, and in the meantime their contact Robert, who was supposed to be sheltering Hester, cut off contact and possibly tried to turn her in. On returning to Atlanta, the Pilot could not find Robert or Hester, and 'Missing Person' posters with Hester's name and face had been posted all over the city. After a failed attempt to learn what had happened from a neighbour, they realised they were being watched by someone in a van and approached them under the guise of asking for directions. The man in sunglasses did not answer them, successfully creeping them out, and they made their exit as calmly and quickly as possible. They spent days losing hope of finding Hester, and started to feel some relief from the stress of not being an active smuggler/fugitive. However, they decided to continue searching, as they were worried about her, although they didn't know how. They found more 'Missing' posters when they flew into Houston and started tearing them down, although they kept a couple. They drove around the city and found that there were more of them in the west, as well as men in sunglasses lurking on street corners. The Pilot went to a print shop and designed a flyer meant for her, offering a chance to win a great deal on flights to Santiago and beyond, at a specific time and place the next day (March 14). They added that the special phrase "Use the orange button to talk" (which is how Hester communicated with the Pilot on previous flights) must be used. Despite their generous distribution door-to-door, nobody turned up to respond to the message. On their way to Los Angeles, they talked into the empty plane as though Hester was there. They hoped she didn't think they'd abandoned her, and apologised to her on multiple counts. They also seemed to disregard or overwrite some things as they were saying them, suggesting that they were planning what they would say to her once they found her. As they left LA, they reflected that they didn't like the city much, and didn't "fit" there. That wrongness was thrilling at first, but quickly wore them out, and they always ended up itching to leave after a day. However, they did like the view as they travelled up the coast to Seattle, and how the landscape transformed. In Montreal, they ran into an old associate of Coleen's, who they hadn't seen in twenty years or more. They chatted with the woman, catching up, and she implied that she was working in journalism but wouldn't be pressed for any details, although the government was potentially involved in her work. She said that she had observed over the last few weeks that a strange agency she was watching seemed to be looking for someone, coordinating their efforts into leaving a misleading trail of flyers and trying to lure someone out. The agency knew that this person they were looking for was a woman, and which ride she hitched out of Atlanta, that she spent time in Birmingham, and then was in Jackson, before finding someone to take her to New Orleans. The Pilot confessed that they were meant to be heading to Kansas City, but managed to swap that job out with a friend so that they could fly to Louisiana and try to track down Hester before anyone else did. Searching for Coleen While in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Pilot was scheduled a delivery of crates into the Ouachita Mountains with no recipient address and almost no other information except greensheets with special delivery instructions that required a driver. The incident made them recall Coleen's mysterious affiliation with Ouachita, in a sudden flood of memory. The Pilot was asked to transport Karen Roberts from New Orleans to Houston urgently, which they agreed to. During the flight, they thanked Karen for all her work with KR Development, which revitalised the American continents after the Reckoning. Just before they began their descent, the Pilot asked Karen if she might be able to put them in touch with somebody who could help them find their family. They wanted to know whether anybody in KR Development could help them find Coleen's settlement, possibly in the Ouachita Mountains, so that they could reunite with her and Sam. They suppose that if Karen told them, she'd have to kill them, and then goes back to flying their plane. They plan to contact Karen's assistant, Emma, the next day, just to "check" that everything is okay, and recieve any messages she might have for them. They thank her one last time. Later the Pilot transported a cigarette-smoking passenger with a dog who made them nervous from Los Angeles to Seattle. According to the Pilot's friend Charlie, who had put them in contact, they had waited a whole week to fly specifically with them, rather than take a flight with some other pilot. While rambling to them, the Pilot mentioned that they were never sure what it was people like them did for a living, although they always assumed it was government work for some reason.Black Box Cassette #8: LAX to SEA Additional info * The Pilot's least favourite kind of weather to travel in is rain, even though it's not that hard, because it "just seems like a bad idea." References Category:Secondary Characters Category:Narrators